West Water Outlaws perform at Vail's Samana Lounge

<b>Special to the Daily </b>The West Water Outlaws often play at the Boulder Theatre, where they have played to nearly sold-out crowds, which has lined them up for headlining gigs at the Fox Theatre. The band is steadily gaining a fan base and will be one to watch as they try to break out as the next big band from Boulder.

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Samana will host high-energy rock 'n' roll band West Water Outlaws Thursday night. "The Outlaws were an instant hit from the first time they starting playing together and, simply put, these guys play some great rock 'n' roll," according to Samana Lounge's promoter Ross Cohen. The Outlaws formed in early 2010 when singer Blake Rooker hazily walked into the wrong statistics class while attending the University of Colorado at Boulder. He ran into a friend from his freshman year at college, Will S. Buck, who had interest in forming a band. After 15 minutes of what felt like brothers meeting for the first time, Rooker and Buck discovered each other's love for down home blues and dirty rock and roll, and a band practice was scheduled for later that evening. After a few practices and some spirited writing sessions, the band started playing parties in the basement of Rooker's house. Interestingly enough during the mass explosion of DJ software and Macbook Pros, not many parties in Boulder featured live Rock & Roll bands at this point in time. The rock parties were a hit and the band began playing in bars and local clubs for a small fee of beer and food. Since adding Andrew "Monkey" Oakley on drums and Vincent Ellwood on bass, The West Water Outlaws have managed to win the 2010 CU battle of the bands, and share the stage with national acts such as guitar legend Dick Dale, Rose Hill Drive, Dirty Sweet, The Swayback and Rival Sons. Using recording time won in the battle of the bands, the Outlaws released its first official EP, entitled "Crooked Angel," which was recorded, mixed and mastered at Coupe Studios in Boulder.